“In that case, my lord: Where do you think Antinous may have been on the night of his death, and do you know what company he kept?” Suetonius responded.
“Of the first I have no idea. The last I saw of the boy was through the early afternoon of the day before, but very briefly,” Arrian confided. “He was on an odd mission. He came to these tents to retrieve his secured coins and treasures from my steward for some purpose.
My household provides safekeeping services to many people, including Antinous and Lysias. He secures his wealth in my steward’s care because this encampment is an open invitation to thievery of one sort or another. I offer complete security to my clients, with full guarantee of capital and proper records. He retrieved a sum of cash and jewels and papers, my steward told me.”
“To what degree, my lord,” Suetonius enquired.
“My steward said he withdrew virtually his entire wealth in gold coins plus several select jewels and property deeds. It was a considerable treasure,” Arrian stated.
“The value?” Suetonius queried furthered.
“If I recall correctly, fifty gold aurei and a similar amount of silver, plus elegant baubles worth a tidy sum. It was probably his entire liquid wealth, though he’s also acquired two good properties at Nicomedia and Athens. Being Caesar’s companion provides many opportunities for investment advice. I estimate his withdrawal was worth several hundred thousand sesterces, minimum, including the properties,” Arrian concluded.
Surisca emitted a soft but audibly impressed gasp. Arrian ignored her, as Arrian did all women.
“How did he explain his withdrawal?” Clarus interjected.
“He didn’t. He made no prior mention to me of the action, so my notary ensured a properly signed and witnessed record with identity seals of the transaction was registered.
Antinous took this sizeable purse away with him to attend to his business privately. I can only imagine his withdrawal was to buy some larger purchase, pay a debt in gambling, or provide gifting to some person unknown,” Arrian offered. “However, upon learning of his death the following day, I too am keen to search for the reason for his drowning and the whereabouts of this treasure. I owe it to his family. I’m sure the second point will provide the answer to the first. Remember, Suetonius, the ancient jurist Cassius’s great query: Cui bono, who benefits?”
“Cui Bono? It was Cicero’s adage as well. This mystery deepens, Senator,” Suetonius muttered. “Where is his treasure? Perhaps the treasure will lead us to a resolution of the death?”
“I don’t believe he’s gambled the treasure, he was not a gambler. And I don’t think any fool would be unwise enough to extort money from Caesar’s Favorite. Their wealth would be short lived.”
“Then where is it?” Clarus repeated. “We have another unknown to add to our mystery.”
Arrian reminisced a little.
“Antinous seemed a lusty enough fellow to my eye, healthily bent upon the earthier pleasures of life as well as giving satisfaction to his chosen partner. And you must understand, gentleman, the boy was neither a cinaedus nor a eunuch either, I can assure you. He enjoyed his pleasures.”
“Were his habits conventional, would you say, Senator?” Suetonius pursued.
“Do you mean, was he sexually conventional? Was he a vir? I think I can vouch for his disposition, gentlemen. I have reason to know something of his tastes from observation.”
“So, perhaps Antinous was the King of the Lionhearted?” Suetonius interjected dryly.
“Perhaps, Suetonius, perhaps. Yet I am content with the Lionheart who currently wears the imperial purple. There are very many of us, gentlemen, who’d be pleased to see Hadrian extend his rule and his life into the distant future,” Arrian declared. “The Empire has rarely seen such a period of serenity.”
“But what could Antinous do about it?” Clarus queried. “He was a mere toyboy, a source of pleasures.”
Arrian frowned.
“Prior to the drowning the lad’s role as Hadrian’s eromenos had expired. It was over. And it must be seen to have ceased, by all. This is a public necessity for Caesar’s sake to avoid the accusation of being a cinaedus, despite the residual affection the emperor has for the lad. He has brought great joy to Hadrian over the past five years, and I suppose this was reciprocal. But the days of his public display as consort are over.
So what does a young man who’s been the recipient of such favor do with his life?
At Alexandria when the Western Favorite made his appearance from Rome, I suggested to Antinous I would enjoy him entering my own staff at Cappadocia. He was smart, capable, well educated, had good contacts, and was experienced in Court procedure. He read and wrote well in the two major languages, with a smattering of others. He’d seen a great deal of the Empire and its peoples, he knew what life is like for them.
He also knew too how to handle himself in elite society with aplomb. He even treated slaves and women respectfully. He was admired by the Court and by the military.
Yet his response to my offer was evasive. In fact he started talking of finding his true destiny, of emulating Alexander, of living according to Achilles’ short but glorious existence. I began to wonder what nonsense had gotten into the lad.”
“Had his head been turned by the new cults among us? Had Antinous fallen under the Chrestus spell?” Clarus queried.
“I doubt it, Clarus,” Arrian calmed his senatorial colleague, “but his sudden separation from Hadrian may have triggered a personal crisis.”
“Has there been some devious conspiracy to ensure the Favorite is ‘retired’ from Caesar’s company for State reasons?” Suetonius queried provocatively. Arrian stiffened at the suggestion through clear cool eyes.
“My good man, Hadrian’s choice of a successor is his own business. But it’s fair to say there are many forces at work to steer him in preferred directions. A great deal is at stake. At this point in time Hadrian is all we have standing between a carefully chosen successor or the chaos of civil war when he dies. Rome has been down that bloody path before.”
“Would the supporters of Senator Commodus, the Western Favorite, go to any lengths to entrench their candidate, Senator,” Suetonius asked audaciously, “including eliminate the so-called Eastern Favorite from Caesar’s companionship?”
“All things are possible, Special Inspector, all things,” Arrian offered quietly. “But Commodus may have his own issues to contend with.”
“Well, what do you make of that?”
Clarus, Suetonius, Strabon, and Surisca had retired to a viewing platform on a hillock above the river. Below them the broad expanse of molten waters flowed to the north and far away Memphis, with the metropolis of Alexandria even farther.
The four looked out over the streaming waters dotted with fishermen’s coracles, light-loader boats, the local ferry feluccas, and small houseboats hired from towns and ports along the Nile’s length to accommodate the tour’s privileged travelers.
The high hulk of The Dionysus, Caesar’s specially-crafted fabrication of two laced river biremes to provide a platform for a structure above, was moored offshore in deeper water. It provided apartments and entertainment space for the empress, Vibia Sabina’s, retinue and her daily feasting soirees.
Anchored beyond The Dionysus to the north lay the Prefect Governor, Flavius Titianus’s, river barque The Alexandros. Its elegant gilded timbers and ornately carved décors provided Titianus and his companion, Anna Perenna, suitably exalted accommodations but in an appropriately scaled down way. Despite its antique age The Alexandros, like The Dionysus, provided evidence of Rome’s triumphant grandeur to awe Egypt’s peasantry.
Roped to moorings alongside the larger craft were the runabout vessels of the tour, single-sail gondolas maintained by several Imperial agencies. Two had sails emblazoned with the scarlet eagle and wreath of the Imperial Household.
Another displayed the blood-red double-scorpion insignia of the Praetorian Guard.
A fourth displ
ayed the Prefect Governor’s cartouche of a golden Ptolemaic eight-pointed starburst, an insignia inherited from Cleopatra’s Ptolemy forebears.
“Senator Arrian seemed ambivalent about Antinous’s passing,” Clarus offered. “I couldn’t detect whether he was saddened or simply disinterested in the boy’s death? Yet I’m told he was fond of the fellow.”
“He told us enough, I think,” Suetonius resolved. “But what did you think of the shrouded figure fleeing ahead of us when we arrived? And who was it, I wonder?”
“The woman with the pronounced perfume?” asked Clarus. “Who was she, do you think? A secret affair of the senator’s? Someone’s wife? Arrian does not travel with a wife.”
“Who indeed?” Suetonius added, looking to Surisca. Surisca smiled enigmatically.
“May I speak?” she asked politely. Suetonius looked to Clarus, who nodded grudging approval.
“The perfume is known to me,” she said, “it was a blend of oils of lavender and wild marjoram. This tells us something, my lords.”
“You recognized the perfume, my dear? What does it tell us?” Suetonius charmed.
“It tells us the wearer was from Rome, my lords. I know the perfume well, as you might imagine. It is new, is highly prized, and very expensive. I’ve used it myself when I’m fortunate enough to be given a small gift of it by a wealthy admirer,” Surisca revealed.
“Why does it tell us the wearer was Roman, Surisca?”.
“Lavender blooms are only harvested near Massilia on the coast of Gaul, while the perfume’s heads of wild marjoram are from Florentia north of Rome. Nowhere in the East produces these blooms in sufficient quantity to make perfume,” Surisca explained, “it requires very great quantities of blooms. These two blooms are impregnated in oil, and then blended and have their scents fixed by a secret process. This is known only to an apothecary who owns a shop in the emporium arcade of Trajan’s New Forum at Rome.
Trajan’s arcade houses the Empire’s leading dealers in fashion silks, jewels, and perfumes. This particular blend of scents is the apothecary’s rarest product. Only the wealthiest, most fashionable people wear it.”
“So, Surisca my dear, this woman was from Rome?” Suetonius enquired in a manner suggesting he already knew her likely response.
“I am not familiar with the Roman women at this encampment, master. But I do not need to because I am sure this was not a woman.”
“Not a woman!?” Clarus lurched.
“No, my lords, the figure was the outline of a man,” she clarified, “he was wearing a toga beneath the cape, and these days men of fashion wear strong perfumes too.”
“By Zeus, who do we know at this godforsaken desert outpost who acquires products from Rome’s leading emporia and wears a perfume which impacts the nostrils of those on the other side of a room?” Clarus asked rhetorically.
“Senator Lucius Ceionius Commodus!” several voices intoned together.
“So what was Commodus doing in Arrian’s private chambers?” Suetonius added.
“Well, they weren’t playing knucklebones,” Clarus said. “Are Commodus and Arrian intimate? Did Arrian’s boudoir debris tell us as much? But I thought Commodus was strictly Caesar’s intimate friend? And a long term one at that. Perhaps that’s why Arrian and Commodus weren’t keen to be discovered together? Hadrian would be offended.”
“Are we putting too grand an interpretation upon our intrusion?” Suetonius offered. “They may have been simply talking politics, trade, or of Caesar’s mourning?”
“Or does Commodus aspire to fill Antinous’s boots again?”
“My friend Septicius,” Suetonius corrected him, “Commodus is now in his late-twenties. He is married at Rome to an equally noble patrician family with Imperial bloodlines. I am told his wife Avidia is currently pregnant with his child.”.
“Yet what do we know about Commodus?” Clarus asked.
“Well, gossip tells he was Hadrian’s lover at one time. Today he is a good looking fellow in his way. But in his late teens he was truly an elegant beauty, if somewhat feminine in his manner,” Suetonius recalled from his days as Hadrian’s secretary.
“He’s also notorious for his sybaritic ways and love of luxury. I’ve heard he prefers to sleep amidst flower petals and Persian fragrances. It’s said he holds extravagant dinner parties with inventive, if somewhat eccentric, dishes. He has a serving staff of very young boys with Cupid’s wings attached to their shoulders to amuse his guests. He’s irrepressible, if perhaps also irresponsible. His wife Avidia already complains about his sleeping around, which he justifies with his joke Pray allow me my indulgence with others because ‘wife’ is a term of respect, my dear, not of pleasure. Overall, he is a mixed bag of values.”
“And this is the man Caesar wishes the Senate and the Legions to accept as his successor!” Clarus exclaimed.
“Strabon, I hope you recorded that quatrain which Arrian erased from your tablet,” Suetonius interjected. “Please read it back to us again.”
The scribe speedily rummaged through his wax tablets to retrieve the notepad recorded. He read aloud from his coded inscription.
“I’ve notated Arrian’s reading of the translation as being –
When the king of the lionhearted
Toys with his man cub no more
It is time for this lackey
To return to .. no .. To restore
his own pride.”
“Fine, Strabon,” Suetonius confirmed. “Tell me, gentlemen, who is the king of the lionhearted and who is the man cub or lackey? Identify who is doing the toying, and who is being toyed with? Who is this person who needs their pride restored? What hunter’s game is being played here, my friends, and who precisely are the hunter and the hunted?”
CHAPTER 20
A tall slender woman swathed in fine silks with her shawl draped elegantly across her high-plaited hair to shade her against the midday sun trod gracefully in kidskin sandals from the riverside access jetty. She stepped with a securely confident gait up the sloping embankment path towards the waiting group of four.
She was accompanied a few paces behind by an officer of Caesar’s Horse Guard acting as her protector in public places, with a slave holding a parasol high. All three had journeyed in an Imperial gondola from The Dionysus moored offshore nearby.
“Welcome, Lady Julia Balbilla of Commagene,” Clarus intoned on her arrival. “You evidently received our message from Secretary Vestinus?”
The 30-ish year-old, fine-complexioned woman stepped beneath the shade of the lookout’s enveloping sun umbrella and dipped a restrained curtsy. She drew back the veil from her face onto her shoulders to reveal unadorned features, clear skin, bright eyes, a piled hairstyle in the conservative aristocratic Roman matron’s manner, and a confident but supremely polite manner.
“Greetings, Senator Gaius Septicius Clarus of Rome,” she purred softly in purest Palatine Latin. “Gentlemen, in what way may I be of value to you, seeing you’ve requested my company?”
“My lady,” Suetonius opened the interview, “we have been commissioned by Great Caesar to explore the circumstances of the death of his Companion of the Hunt, Antinous of Bithynia. We are instructed to determine the manner of the lad’s death and by what path he came to it. We are hoping you can throw some light on the matter.”
“Do you mean Caesar’s Companion of the Hunt, Suetonius Tranquillus, or do you mean Caesar’s eromenos? Or perhaps you really mean Caesar’s catamite? Which definition suits you, Tranquillus?”
The elegant figure challenged the Special Inspector with a faintly deprecating, amused smile. Suetonius and Clarus choked.
“Caesar’s eromenos, perhaps, my lady,” Suetonius responded diplomatically.
“You need not be too polite in my company, gentlemen. I am not a delicate flower, easily crumpled. My Lady the Augustus and I have no illusions about Antinous and his allure to our imperial master. I’m told the fellow possessed definite enticements to very many at Court, though
such attractions pass me by I’m afraid.
Yet we both certainly agree Antinous was a charming young man. Vibia Sabina and I enjoyed his conversation on many occasions, so we were very saddened to hear of his fate. He deserved better, we feel, despite being a foreigner diversion of no real consequence.
But I can see, Suetonius Tranquillus, you’re still up to your old tricks. The past decade hasn’t taught you much, has it, since your debacle with My Lady at Rome?”
“I don’t know what you mean, madam,” Suetonius lied as a bright flush swamped his features. Surisca took an enhanced interest in this dialog while Clarus shuffled his laced boots uncomfortably beneath his toga.
“All the ladies of court, Suetonius, were aware of your chauvinism, and probably still are. Even your wife or concubine, or whatever she was at the time, poor thing. She was your second partner, wasn’t she? Did she leave you, like the first one?
But it was only when you decided to put your lechery to the test with Caesar’s wife that the sky fell in, taking our good friend Septicius Clarus with you,” the gentlewoman with the purebred accent and an almost imperceptible smile lobbed devastatingly.
Suetonius smarted.
“The entire Court knows how Caesar doesn’t share his wife’s bed, he far prefers the company of virile males,” Balbilla continued unabated. “Perhaps the twelve year age difference when the Augusta was married to Hadrian impeded their marital relationship? We note, however, how a thirty year differential between the emperor and his eromenos doesn’t induce similar consequences.
Yet this doesn’t mean, Suetonius Tranquillus that menials therefore have license to be familiar with the Augusta. The empress wasn’t then, and isn’t now, in urgent need of a mercy fuck.”
Gulping, Clarus interrupted this unexpected, escalating exchange. It was getting out of hand.
“Be that as it may, Julia Balbilla, we’re here to explore other matters today. The death of Antinous, in fact.
We wish to take your legal statement of what you might know about the boy’s death. We’ve reason to believe the lad engaged in sexual activities through the day he died, though we don’t know where or with whom,” Clarus explained. “We’re trying to clarify the picture of how his death occurred and who might know something about it.”
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